Uber Eats food photo requirements in 2026: dimensions, format, and the rejection list

Uber Eats is stricter on photo specs than Thuisbezorgd, and gets the most rejections of the three big delivery platforms in our customer accounts. Below are the exact dimensions Uber Eats wants in 2026, the rules that get photos rejected even when the size is right, and where the spec differs from Thuisbezorgd and Deliveroo.

Uber Eats menu item photo dimensions and aspect ratio

Menu item photos take a 5:4 to 6:4 aspect ratio at minimum 1200 by 800 pixels, per Uber Eats' merchant guidelines. That is a different ratio from Thuisbezorgd's 3:2, so you cannot upload the same source file to both platforms without re-cropping.

JPEG, PNG, or GIF format. Maximum file size is 10 MB. The accepted pixel range is 550 to 10,000 wide and 440 to 10,000 tall, which is permissive on the upper end and forgiving on the lower end as long as you hit 1200 by 800.

The Uber Eats app then crops the menu item thumbnail to a 1:1 square for search cards and the in-app browse experience. That is the most important fact to design around. Whatever you upload, the customer browsing the app sees a centred square crop. Plates pressed against the edges of your frame get sliced.

For other photo types:

• Profile photo (the one shown at the top of your restaurant page): 16:9 at minimum 1920 by 1080. Uber Eats wants this to feature at least five different menu items to communicate variety.
• Cover photo: a fixed 2880 by 2304 pixels in JPEG, per the merchant gourmetpix breakdown of 2026 specs. This is the highest-resolution requirement in the consumer-facing food delivery space and the one most operators get wrong.

If your account dashboard shows different numbers, follow the dashboard. Uber Eats updates these specs without an announcement.

What Uber Eats rejects that Thuisbezorgd lets through

There is enough overlap that you can reuse most of your Thuisbezorgd photos with a re-crop. The differences:

Uber Eats permits hands in the shot, where Thuisbezorgd does not. We still recommend keeping hands out for delivery thumbnails because hands rarely improve the read at 200-pixel size, but if you have an editorial shot with a hand pulling apart a sandwich, Uber Eats will accept it.

Uber Eats actively rejects stock imagery. They explicitly do not accept stock photos from search engines or stock photo sites, and they appear to have automated detection for it now. Original photos only. Generated AI photos that faithfully represent your dish are accepted; what they reject is reused stock that any number of restaurants could be using.

Out-of-focus images are rejected automatically. This is the rejection reason we see most often in our customer accounts. Uber Eats runs a sharpness check on upload, and a slight motion blur or a misfocused subject gets bounced before review. Re-shoot rather than re-upload.

Strong shadows or underexposed shots fail review. Front-flash and direct overhead sun both produce the kind of harsh shadow Uber Eats rejects. Side window light between 10:00 and 14:00 is the lowest-effort fix.

The bans Uber Eats shares with Thuisbezorgd: no faces, no watermarks, no text overlays, no multiple dishes in a single-item slot, no raw ingredients as the prominent subject.

What works for Uber Eats specifically

The 1:1 thumbnail crop on Uber Eats is more aggressive than the cards on Thuisbezorgd, which means centring discipline matters more. Two patterns we see consistently winning:

Centred plate, ~12 percent margin, on a clean light or wood surface. The square crop hits the plate dead-on. Burgers, bowls, salads, curries, and most main dishes work this way.

Tight crop on the food itself, no plate visible. For dishes where the food is the visual story (a stack of pancakes, a layered dessert, a bao bun in close-up), the plate adds nothing at thumbnail size. Crop tight, fill the frame, and let the food carry the shot. This style breaks the "plate dead-centre" rule but Uber Eats accepts it as long as the dish is in focus and clearly identifiable.

Avoid the bundle-overhead style on single-item slots. Uber Eats rejects those because the customer ordering one dish does not want to see five other things on the same plate. That style belongs in the profile photo, where five-plus items is exactly the request.

The cover photo is the one most operators get wrong

The 2880 by 2304 cover requirement is high resolution and a 5:4 aspect ratio. Most phones do not output that natively without re-export. We see operators upload a 1920 by 1080 banner that gets stretched and pixellated, or a 4:3 source that gets letterboxed.

The fix is mechanical: shoot or generate at 5:4, export at exactly 2880 by 2304, JPEG quality 85 percent. FoodPic.ai exports at the cover-photo dimensions out of the box if you select the Uber Eats preset.

When Uber Eats rejects a photo

The rejection email is generic. Almost all real rejections are one of: out-of-focus, harsh shadow / underexposed, multiple items on a single-item slot, watermark or text overlay, or the photo was detected as stock. Re-shoot or re-export rather than reuploading the same file. Uber Eats deduplicates by image hash, so a renamed file does not bypass the reject.

If your menu shifts often or you sell on multiple platforms with different aspect ratios, the Menu Scanner generates per-dish photos and exports each one at the platform's required dimensions automatically. Three free credits is enough to test it on one dish before deciding anything.